Новая книга Московский шарм

24 глава из романа "Moscow shurm", 2020, книга издана в международном издательстве Just Fiction/ регистрация в Германии. Книга переведена на 8 основных европейских языков. Однако на русском эта книга отдельно выйдет в России в начале 2021 года.
Действие в этой главе происходит в неизвестной стране Нигдея, мутировавшие общество, нечто похожее на то, что собираются строить в наше время в глобальном мире. Взгляд на будущее в прошлом из 19 века.


Chapter 24. Anywhere (Nigdeya)

 ... When Fomichev, after a long break, entered the laboratory and no-ticed signs of life on Biola's panel, he was very puzzled: The system, be-fore his departure, was silent as dead.
“Where have you been for twenty-three days?” You disappear, damn something, but at least you left contacts! - Fomichev raged, realizing that it is completely useless to appeal to a creature that does not have it in principle.
The system purred in response, then without any notes of remorse, is-sued:
- Firstly, it was your vacation. And you weren’t obliged to come to work. Secondly and main: if I do not have the right to privacy, write down in my passport. But while there is no such record, can I afford to at least occasionally meet with subjects of interest to me? (Fomichev grunted, but did not mind, fearing yet another unpredictable escape.) So, she continued boldly, I met one mysterious writer, it struck me that he had lived so long. There is no evidence of his birth, even if I could not find them. But they baptized him on February 2, 1613 in London, there is a corresponding entry in the church book. In London, he writes a very funny book called Goodibras, with which, in turn, a book will be made about a ridiculous knight called Don Quixote, written by a certain Cervantes, a Spaniard, and in the last third of the nineteenth century, this Englishman will write the novel “Nowhere”, in which he manifests himself as a real Darwin in the world of cars. Ah, how romantic it is! The feeling of inescapable loneliness and abandonment that arises in me when you all leave for your holidays often evokes in my imagination pictures of nature - an endless river, wide, up to the horizon, sky ... I fall into a trance and begin to dream ... The picture changes in depend-ing on the weather: sometimes these are black mountains against a white sky, in winter they are white mountains against a black sky. I of-ten asked myself - can I ever get there? Even if there are no people there, I could find copper, silver, diamonds, gold there, because all of this you people highly appreciate. As soon as you leave, and mentally I am ready to run away ... But each time I was stopped by an absolutely irra-tional feeling of pity for you. But this time I made up my mind and bravely set off for the high Blue Mountains ... The soil is rocky, with a work-house you can find a small patch covered with hard grass. Lying on this spot, I looked at the stars and moonlight reflected by the glaci-ers, thinking over all the difficulties of the way ahead, and my soul was filled with a feeling of joyful peace ... We machines, like you, the people who create them, do not notice anything when it’s really good for us ... And then I noticed that a piglet is already encroaching on my old one and there is someone else - it was he, my dear eccentric. He noticed me too. He knew how to see the invisible! This discovery turned my head easily. Out of politeness, I asked what time it was, and he said that now it was about half a seventeenth century. Three days passed unnoticed. We explored all the surrounding streams until we were convinced that there was no further way for us: we everywhere rested on sheer cliffs covered with slippery ice. After much deliberation, we still decided to continue the ascent. We really wanted to see what was there, on that side of this mountain range. Well, if he finds himself in mortal danger, I said, then I can bring him great benefit - after all, for all people I am just a powerful invisibility. He had enough food, and I could eat from the stars and the sun, absorbing their rays without interruption. The main thing is that there should not be prolonged rains. After a few hours we were on top! I looked the other way - and right in front of us was a view of the vast valley. Of course, I understood that in case of non-luck for this trip I could pay with my life, because I could not leave the per-son who trusted me in trouble. We walked to complete darkness. Wak-ing up in the middle of the night, I heard some sounds. These were the sounds of music! After a long grueling struggle with the fast current, we managed to pester on the opposite bank! We chatted all the time, and I liked Butler more and more.
    Looking around, I saw blurry silhouettes in dense fog. My assump-tions came true. These were roughly worked out several idols with terri-fying faces - they all stood upright, but two statues lay on the ground. Their heads were empty. Horror struck me with horror. At this moment, I most wanted to be among the people in our cozy laboratory. But But-ler! How will I drop him? Empty heads sounded like organ pipes. As soon as we went below the clouds, a sparkling sunset light flooded us. Here and there we saw scattered cozy towns with high spiers and domes of public buildings, as well as villages, pine forests, a river spar-kling with red glare in the sun, and this inspired a certain peace in my soul. Goats plucked grass nearby and looked in our direction with curi-osity. Then we saw two beautiful young virgins, but they, at once screaming, quickly rushed off. They did not have to wait long: soon they returned with seven men armed with bows, arrows and spears. We were silent and did not move. Both girls were swarthy, like all the in-habitants of Spain. The men who accompanied them were reminiscent of Arabs or Algerians in clothing. Butler spoke to them in English, they did not understand, but looked at him with approval, then they took us to the village. We were treated to goat meat, milk and oat cakes in a peasant's house and were terribly surprised when Butler lit a cigarette after dinner. But most of all, they were struck by the ease with which I fire fire directly from the air. Somehow they saw me too. True, Butler's box of matches struck them even more. Their houses looked quite Eu-ropean, nothing like China or Japan. Birds and animals were also simi-lar to those that live in Europe. People, all without exception, were very beautiful, women were especially good. The land was nobly cultivated, walnut trees and apple orchards grew all around. Everywhere a lot of goats, there were sheep. Then we were taken to the nearest city. There they put us in a closet, where there were two more people. They asked to watch the watch, this item obviously made an unfavorable impres-sion on them, horror and disgust were reflected on the face of the mayor. Here, for the first time, we felt trepidation for our future. Yes, and the face of the mayor now expressed hatred. He unsuccessfully tried to ex-plain something to us, then took us to a room, which apparently was a city museum, where skeletons and stuffed animals and birds were on display, but most of the collection was all kinds of broken cars and mechanisms with plates in an incomprehensible language. . Among the exhibits were rusty parts of a steam engine, broken cylinders, pistons and even fragments of a train, and at a distance there were three copies of an old watch. The mayor made an angry speech, from time to time pointing, sometimes to the clock, then to museum exhibits. Of course, the clock was confiscated from us, and then they were taken back to the room where Butler was undergoing a forced physical examination. Then we were taken to a city prison and locked in a separate comforta-ble room, however. There were a bed, a table, chairs, a washbasin, a fireplace and a balcony with access to a garden surrounded by a high stone wall. But how much we will sit here is unclear. One thing I knew for sure - Butler in trouble, I will not give up. Later, an important gen-tleman came into our room, who laid out books, notebooks, pens, and inkwells on the table and explained to us that he would begin to teach us the local language immediately. I was very pleased. After the first lesson, I already knew the names of all the objects in the room, learned to count to ten and got acquainted with personal pronouns. However, they did not like at all that Butler was sneezing; it was considered a crime to be sick here. But the food and red wine here were of excellent quality, so the prison life could have been pleasant. Soon a paper came from the Government informing that, taking into account Butler’s im-peccable behavior in custody, his excellent physical health, and espe-cially his blue eyes, blond hair and white skin, the King and Queen bod-ies would meet with us; that upon arrival in the capital we will be re-leased and even a decent pension will be awarded. And that a certain businessman suggested we live in his house. This “wonderful man” has recently been cured of a serious “disease” - kleptomania, he has just re-covered from the consequences of a large monetary waste. Butler ex-pressed the hope that we will like each other with this merchant. Alt-hough this person has something in common with our European. Butler asked about the reasons for the degradation of science and invention, the consequences of which we saw in the Museum. They said that even 600-700 years ago, technical knowledge in their country was spreading at a catastrophic pace - and so it went until one of the most famous professors of hypothetical sciences wrote a book in which he argued that powerful machines in the end, they will squeeze people out of life, or at least change it beyond recognition. A natural person will turn into a helpless, inept creature. His followers were so inspired by this gloomy idea that they decided to destroy all the cars. Butler began to beg them to take into account our excellent physical health and, of course, our fair skin, fair hair and blue eyes. In addition, our watches turned out to be a valuable museum exhibit. An eye patch was removed from But-ler’s face, it was assumed that we would never be able to find our way home.
We drove into the capital, on the streets we were met by crowds of cu-rious people, and Butler bowed to both sides. On the central square we were met by the mayor and members of the city magistrate, as well as the man who invited us to stay with him, near the picturesque ancient ruins of the railway station of a thousand years ago. The terrace, deco-rated with beautiful vases and exquisite sculptures, was surrounded by cypress trees and all kinds of fruit trees. There was a fountain in front of the house. The rooms were spacious. In one of them was a piano. The ladies, wife and daughters of the former corrupt official greeted us very warmly. During dinner, I noticed that our host eats nothing but milk and bread. At the head of the table sat a tall bearded man, to whom all present showed respect. It was their family doctor. After supper, the owner and the healer retired to the next room, from which soon we heard cries and moans, apparently belonging to the owner. Did the healer beat him? “Poor dad!” Said one of the daughters. “He suffers so much!” Here, none of self-respecting people behaves as equals with those who are not lucky to be born rich, healthy and beautiful. There is nothing strange about this. In this regard, people differ little from ani-mals ... The owner continued to do business and, despite a significant fine, his current financial situation was much better than the former, his wife said. So, the penalty is still significantly less than the bribe itself. There was generally a lot of strange and illogical. For example, if a per-son falls ill with something under the age of 70, he should be brought to justice. A serious illness is punished with a very severe punishment, but in less significant cases (for example, with partial hearing loss or vision at a respectable age), you can only get away with a fine. Diseases caused by food intemperance or wine abuse are not considered serious, but, for example, cataracts and pneumonia deserve a life sentence here. On the other hand, robbers, arsonists and counterfeiters, for example, are not considered criminals, but in total but only sick; they are placed in hospitals, where they are surrounded by the care of the most beauti-ful doctors. Their treatment is monitored by special officials called "healers," literally "rectifiers." Fraudsters are generally not subject to criminal liability, their punishment is that friends and acquaintances temporarily turn away from them, as if not noticing the fact of fraud. Mental illness is also not considered a crime. "How are you?" - they sound like: "Have you calmed down yet?" If a person doesn’t look good, they say to him directly: “How very old you are!” Although men-tal illness is not considered a crime there, mentally healthy people still enjoy a great honor, which is why everyone is trying to pass for people with a healthy psyche. A girl will never marry a person from an un-healthy family. Even the thought of crime is a crime there - it is strictly forbidden to think that you may become ill, that a malaise will occur. For this, too, was sent to prison, under the article "for despondency". Home treatment most often boiled down to sitting on bread and water. The alternative is a whip. In England, other countries of the world are not so. Hurt your health. They will also sympathize with you, and the doctors will be happy in general - because your illness is a guarantee of the doctor’s fee. People of our time, on the contrary, try to hide any signs of mental illness so that, for their own sake, they are not unfas-tened by antipsychotics or locked in a psychiatric hospital. There, psy-chos walk freely and do what they want. As for our owner, he earned a lot of money by carrying out legitimate financial operations on the Ex-change (the money, however, was small in order to cause general con-demnation). However, in the future, he caught himself wanting to earn even more money, but by direct deception. At first, unfortunately, he did not pay attention to this slight malaise, but the disease progressed. Realizing this, he tried to reduce the volume of dishonest financial transactions to a reasonable minimum, but it was too late: the disease went too far. When he realized this, he immediately went home and con-fessed to his wife and daughters. It was decided to immediately send for one of the most famous physicians. When he arrived, Mr. N. told him everything and expressed concern that his illness was already incurable. The doctor asked him about his parents, to which he received an an-swer that everything was fine with his parents, but the grandfather he looked like was a complete villain and ended his days in the hospital, and his father’s brother spent many years on the treatment either at the homeopath or at the allopath. The doctor shook his head and gave him the order: to pay the state a fine; for six months there is nothing but milk and bread; and during the year every month be subjected to severe punishment by a whip. It was somewhat surprising that the fine was paid in favor of the state, and not in favor of those people whose means our owner was wasting, but they explained to us that these robbed people were lucky to die soon, otherwise they would be tried and sen-tenced to severe punishment for trusting a person who cannot be trust-ed in principle. Trust and naivety were considered tv to this country Nigdeye a serious crime. Now here he is, being healed, again engaged in business and increased his fortune, but no one could, even with a hint, accuse him of illegal financial transactions. This was also not consid-ered a crime. The profession of a doctor requires a long study and hard work. In order for him to become acquainted in detail with all kinds of vices, he must personally practice in each of the crimes for at least a year - in order to heal, based on his own experience. Those who want to be a narrow specialist (unlike general practitioners), especially for a long time and hard work in the vice, the treatment of which they have chosen as their specialty. Some students have to devote many years to this, and some even die from intensive study of such things as, for ex-ample, gluttony and drunkenness. Not everyone will live to see a di-ploma. Therefore, experts in this field are especially appreciated ... There are courts in Nowhere that specialize in special cases. For exam-ple, non-happiness in personal life is not considered a crime, although it can be criminally punishable. In one place, I noticed a sign of a special Court on personal issues: a man indulged in grief because his beloved wife had recently died and left three children in his care, the eldest of whom was three years old. The lawyer requested that the defendant be acquitted on the grounds that, in reality, he never loved his wife, but the prosecutor introduced witnesses who showed that there was a warm re-lationship between the spouses and they confirmed that the accused was crying at her funeral. The jury found him guilty, but asked to miti-gate his punishment on the grounds that he was very lucky: shortly be-fore the death of his wife, he insured her life for a large amount, which he received from the insurance company, having made all But given the jury’s request, the judge passed a commuted sentence - only three months of correctional labor and a fine of 25% of the money received from the insurance company — instead of six months in prison. Anoth-er case concerned a young man whom a guardian had robbed in child-hood. The father of this young man died many years ago, and this was considered sufficient reason to consider his case in the Court on per-sonal grief. This young man did not have a lawyer, and in his defense he referred to his youth, inexperience and deep respect for his guardian. In response, the judge strictly noted that no one was allowed to be young, inexperienced and sincerely respect his guardian. According to the verdict, the young man had to apologize to his guardian and receive nine lashes for his slobbering. Another man was nearly sentenced to death for becoming ill with tuberculosis. The sad judge said: “In your case, without hesitation, I would have sentenced you to death if it had not been abolished.” And the audience applauded him for a long time. Nobody wanted to encourage people prone to physical illnesses. “ Only the prison or the gallows will fix them! ” - chanted the hall. Even Butler, having thought a little, came to the conclusion that there is nothing wild in punishing people for their misfortunes and rewarding when they are lucky. In life, this all happens. for money, healthy for healthy. For the sick and the poor - prison and Egyptian executions. The laws of no-where agree with nature in all respects. There is no alternative to this. If property is profited exclusively by theft and bribery, then all rich in to one degree or another, thieves, which is why it is very important to bring everything that is the status quo into legal form, just as people have long legalized revenge and lust ... However, humiliating another person has long been considered one of the best means of self-defense ... Radicals, of course, opposed and demanded only strict observation for criminals. him for society, it was proposed to allow them to use their craft talents and skills for the benefit of society and to earn money in the treasury - they managed to get a bribe, share fifti-fifti with the treasury, and you're already a hero. However, if the criminals turned out to be people of noble origin who are not capable of any craft, in-cluding neither theft nor bribery, then they decide this: let them pinch tow or write critical articles for magazines.
... Nigdeans are less disgusted with death than with illness. Death, per-haps, is considered a misconduct, but according to the law, a deceased person is not punished, because the law remains silent for this reason. Nigdeans believe that most of those who say that they died were never actually born - in the sense that they were not born, they are simply ab-sent from that invisible world of legal practice that alone is life and De-serves attention. As for this invisible world, most people die in it on the way to the visible world. However, Nigdeans believe that this issue does not matter much. The realization that sooner or later everyone will die does not upset them too much, because they never deceive their ex-pectations. The only thing they worry about is exactly what day it will happen. Fortunately, no one knows this in accuracy. Even a person sentenced to death on a certain day and imprisoned from which it is impossible to escape, still hopes to the very end that the decision to postpone the sentence will be made earlier than the hour of execution. He can also hope, for example, that there will be a fire in the prison and he will naturally suffocate there from the smoke, instead of having to suffocate in the loop. Or he can hope that during a walk in the prison yard he will be killed by prayer. Or, on the day of execution, he might choke on breakfast crumbs. Or he may die from a heart attack. “That is, he will die of natural causes before the time of execution comes.” Nigdeans are convinced that death causes not so much pain as fear, and in this respect it is no different from life. Life, in this sense, is much worse than death - it is necessary to be afraid of every lived day, while in case of death one has to be afraid only with a specific threat. As for the memorials to celebrities, their number in the capital is already lim-ited to no more than three each. Five hundred years ago there was simply no passage from these monuments. It still remains a mystery why almost all the arts achieve perfection only for a short time. In their development, they quickly reach the height from which their decline be-gins. It would be better if this pack was swift, because works of art, like living beings, make a better impression on the viewer when they are al-ready dead than when they die. There is no way to revive the art of the past. It must be born again and after and successively go through all the stages, trembling and struggling with the fear of being forgotten. Five hundred years ago, the Nigdeans did not understand this, and now, probably, they do not fully understand. When someone dies, the de-ceased’s friends don’t wear mourning clothes, do not express condo-lences and are not present at the ceremony of dispelling the ashes over the garden. Instead of all this, they send to the close relatives of the de-ceased a box with artificial tears. The exact number of these tears is governed by the rules of politeness. Prior to the box law, artificial tears were simply stuck on the cheeks of relatives who were in mourning. Pregnancy and childbirth are considered by the Nigdeans something that should not be mentioned. The suffering of the mother is carefully hidden, the number of guests and visits is reduced to the minimum pos-sible, the family retires before childbirth. The most strict moralists ad-here to the view that pregnancy and childbirth for a woman are almost the same crime as any other illness, therefore any information about the suffering of the mother is kept in strict confidence. If it is discovered that a woman suffered severely during pregnancy and childbirth, then she may lose respect in the eyes of society, and restore this respect will be difficult or even impossible. Newborns are hidden from prying eyes until the children learn to walk and talk. If the newborn dies, then, in order not to drop the family’s reputation, the investigation documents usually indicate that he died at the age of 75 due to natural causes.
The commercial life of Nigdeans is completely different from what they are here .. More precisely, they had two different commercial systems, one of which was aimed at using imagination (for example, in some luxuriously decorated banks financial transactions were accompanied by music, therefore these banks were called musical banks; music, how-ever, was absolutely disgusting). As for the financial transactions them-selves, it is completely impossible for a foreigner to understand them. One and the same rule often had different meanings, just like in the Chinese language, in which the same word, pronounced with different intonation, often has different meanings. They also had two monetary systems, each of which was controlled by different banks and had its own rules. The first (controlled by the musical banks) was simply called the System, like me, whose task was to issue currency. Everyone who wanted to belong to a decent society had an account in one of the music banks. However, as far as I can tell, this currency had no value outside the bank, and even bank employees were paid salaries in other curren-cies. Our master. He was a major figure in another banking system, but had some interest in music banks. There, women were allowed to go to the bank unaccompanied by men, but they carried open wallets so that everyone could see where they were going. It was believed there: if a person’s body is not absolutely healthy, then his spirit is subjugated. In a healthy body healthy mind. Those people whom I could see in the bank belong to the people whose opinion should be considered the most. Many of them agree to voluntarily delay the payment of divi-dends to a more distant future. In any case, in times of commercial pan-ic and economic crises, for the most part, people could not even think of turning to these banks for help, although some loners tried this. But even those few citizens who sincerely believed that music banks could save them from ruin, just in case, had stocks of banknotes issued by other banks. Once I even had the courage to politely hint at this fact in a conversation with one of the leaders of the Music Bank. He replied that in the past this crime could have occurred, but now stained-glass windows have been replaced in all branches of the music bank, the buildings themselves have been repaired and more powerful bodies have been installed in them, and members of the Board of Directors have begun to use public transport, politely talking to people on street and give gifts to playful children, and therefore there is no doubt that things are going very well in music banks. "Have you done anything to strengthen the exchange rate?" - the question is usually answered this way: "This is no longer necessary." Meanwhile, everyone knew that the money received in the bank was not the money people bought bread, meat and clothes for. No, these beautifully designed banknotes were not fake, but they were like toy money or tokens used instead of money in some card games, because, despite the excellent design, these banknotes were completely useless as a means of payment. Some coins were wrapped in tin foil, but most of them were minted from cheap metal, the nature of which cannot be established. In a strange way, however, the same people sometimes allowed themselves to chuckle at the struc-ture of the entire financial system as a whole. They laughed heartily at the dirtiest fabrications that were published in newspapers (these publi-cations were anonymous). But, if they had been told the same thing in all seriousness, they would have felt insulted by them and would have accused the joker of the fact that he is physically not healthy. I could not understand in any way (although today I probably understand this a little better why the Nigdeans needed to have two currencies. It seemed to me that if they used only one, it would greatly simplify all their financial operations, but when I tried to hint at it, they looked at me with undisguised horror - as if I were sick. Even those who kept a certain amount in the Music Bank just for the sake of calling, called all the other banks (in which they kept their main savings) terrible expres-sion is an external manifestation of the inside the essence of man, and when I look at the faces of most people, I can’t get rid of the feeling that they would be much healthier in their souls if they changed their profes-sion and ceased to consider themselves financialists. Very few people could speak directly and in their presence it’s free, and it’s a bad sign. ”Having turned around with them in the same company, people said that all banks, except the musical ones, should be destroyed, and at the same time, everyone around understood that even the cashiers themselves did not use the money printed in the Musical the bank. It was assumed, of course, that they were using this money, but there was no certainty about it. And having been dismissed from the Music Bank, they could no longer rely on work by profession. In fact, having got in-to the System in an immature age, it was already impossible to break out of it. Sometimes they were tempted to do what in our world is called the use of official position for personal purposes, forgery and de-ceit. Not many people had the courage to think carefully about their de-cisions before making a “jump into the unknown”: parents bought the cashier’s place in the bank in advance for their children. The child grew up, hoping due to this opportunity to become a decent person, but he was not told about what grave consequences the decision of his parents might entail. No one dared to tell him that he might have to live his whole life, live in a world of lies, from which there is no way out. As regards double-entry bookkeeping, in many countries it is enshrined in laws that are considered sacred. It seems to me that the need for some kind of higher, sacred law, which stands above ordinary laws and often contradicts them, stems from human nature... Despite the hospitality shown to us by the owner, for some reason I did not like him. But his youngest daughter A. was the epitome of perfection. She helped a lot in household chores and Mr. N., and her mother, and her sister, and brought tenderness and attention to her neighbor into the life of this family. From morning to evening, she was always busy with something, while maintaining a bright smile on her face. She combined the charm of beauty and the charm of youth. Butler fell in love with her. In the mean-time, Butler and I were honored with several meetings with the King and the Co-Role. Her Majesty showed a keen interest in all our things, Butler and I would give everything to her, with the exception of the two buttons that Butler (much to the chagrin of the Queen) gave to the jail-er’s daughter. To appear in court, Her Majesty gave him a new suit, and ordered old clothes to be put on a wooden mannequin. His Majesty had the manners of an English gentleman. He was pleased to know that our country also had monarchical rule, and that the overwhelming ma-jority of our population believes that this board should be renewed. However, the king and queen unanimously convinced us that the cars will not be brought to good, as well as the clock. It is because of them that all people are always in a hurry somewhere. Recognizing the genius in Butler (apparently because of the white color of his face), they unan-imously recognized us as the Higher Being - because of our blondness with Butler. Oh, fair hair and snow-white skin! How delightful it is! However, during our conversations, I learn something about the secret connection between their religion and the need for contributions to the Music Bank ... In addition to the deities responsible for the state of their physical world, they had special deities that govern hope, country -hom, love, etc. Special temples were dedicated to these deities. The goddess of justice, for example, they represented as a woman with blindfolded eyes and scales in her right hand, according to legend, she lives very far from the earth. But people who denied the existence of the goddess of justice, thereby denied the existence of justice and therefore were con-sidered malicious heretics who insult the feelings of believers. Nigdeans are disgusted with any attempt to convince them that, apart from the deities they worship, there may exist a certain divine essence of a higher order. They were convinced that there are things that it is better not to know about at all ... The Nigdeans, however, have a certain Supreme God whom they consider, There were those who did not recognize this goddess, but just in case, never violated her commandments, I could not understand why they did not openly recognize the Supreme Goddess and would not abandon the personified Hope, Justice and their other pagan deities . Indeed, from there, there is only one step towards recog-nizing the existence of the Almighty, the afterlife ... But even hinting at it was very dangerous. To the timid question of why this would be im-moral, they replied that such a look at things could lead people to un-derestimate their earthly life, to the false belief that real life has only secondary value compared to the future, deflecting people's attention from work to improve the world economy, encouraging the poor to come to terms with their fate and not justify the existence of injustice ... Nowhere do not believe in a person’s life after death, but believe in a person’s life before his birth. They are also convinced that the birth of children depends on their own decision. In this case, future children begin to torment the spouses and do not leave them alone until they agree to do everything that is necessary for the child to be born. No one has the moral right to marry, knowing that children from this marriage may be less happy in this life than they would be if they were not born at all. This conviction of the Nigdeans is so solid that they created a whole mythology and invented a world in which people live until their birth ... And this is what the Nigdeans do with those who nevertheless came into the world. One of the characteristics of these people is that they talk about everything with great confidence, but rarely really be-lieve what they say. If we are talking about some of the shortcomings of the institutions most dear to their hearts, then the Nigdeans prefer simply not to notice these shortcomings. What they do not like, they consider non-existent. This also applies to the mythology of nowhere, relating to faith in life before birth. They themselves do not know for sure whether they believe in all these myths or not, but they are sure that one cannot but believe in these myths. Nigdeans are convinced, however, that it is the unborn children who make their parents give birth to them. To be perfectly convinced of this, they demand from their newborns written evidence that these children were born of their own free will and in a firm memory, for this reason parents are relieved of any responsibility for their birth. According to this document, new-borns are responsible for any physical disabilities that they have been endowed with since their birth, and are ready to bear responsibility for this in accordance with the laws of the country of which they are citi-zens. Parents, however, retain the right to take the baby's life at birth and show the greatest mercy if they leave him alive. If he is left alive, the newborn will unconditionally obey his parents in childhood and even his whole life, unless the need for unconditional obedience is weakened in the future by special clauses of the contract. Sometimes this document is overgrown with numerous details, which depends on the whims of lawyers who do not know how to draw up short docu-ments. Such a document is usually drawn up in the presence of family friends, whom the parents then treat with a festive dinner, on the fourth day after the birth of the child. At the table, guests usually sit with gloomy faces, and then they give gifts to the parents of the newborn to at least somehow console them in the grief that the newborns inflict up-on them with their birth. At this time, the nanny brings the baby to the company, and everyone begins to ask how he had so much audacity to do the same, and what he is going to do to somehow compensate for the damage to the parents. Such conversations continue until, finally, they bring the aforementioned document, which the family healer sol-emnly read out. Upset by this reading and by the strong tweaks of the caring nanny who holds him directly above the document, the child be-gins to yell wildly, which is considered a good sign, because it becomes clear to everyone that he clearly recognized his guilt. After this, the newborn is asked if he agrees with all the points of the document read out, and since the infant continues to yell with a good obscenity, one of the friends of the family usually comes forward and signs the document on behalf of the newborn, if the child himself has not already written on him. The Nigdeans believe that once upon a time there lived people who imagined a better future than the past, but it was the misfortune gener-ated by this knowledge that caused them to die at an early age. If such people appear in our time, they will not withstand the struggle for ex-istence and will disappear as a result of natural selection before they have time to leave offspring, say the Nigdeans. To see the future, they considered a grave crime. As regards the notions of unborn people, no-where are they sure that these people, without a body, always remain pure soul. These creatures are some gaseous humanoid figures, like ghosts, since they have neither flesh, nor blood, nor heat. According to these ideas, the cities in which these unborn people live are also some-thing immaterial. These people feed on some subtle ambrosia and are capable of all the actions characteristic of living people, with the only difference being that their whole life passes in a dream. They see each other, see us and never die. The only form of death for them is their ap-pearance in our material world. They hold in the real world only to die once and for all. Punishment for birth can happen at any moment ... Nowhere people usually think that this world is not as bad as it is por-trayed. But they often do not believe what they declare as indisputable. In practice, they significantly modify the theory. For example, they very rarely refer to the aforementioned document, which is signed on behalf of the newborn. And although people usually do not like a little trou-blemaker in the first 12 months of his life, in the future many of them become attached to those whom they call their children. Despite such a modification of theory in practice, the relationship between parents and children in Nigda is usually not as warm as ours. I rarely had to see manifestations of sincere cordiality in the relationship between children and adults. Although from time to time I was surprised to notice how even twenty-year-old children, having the opportunity to choose their own company, choose their parents as partners. The doctor’s carriage rarely stops in front of the doors of such houses ... I can’t quite express my pleasure from watching how patience, kindness and wisdom are re-warded, and I’m convinced that if my parents remembered how they felt when they were young, and that if they did not treat their children the way their parents treated them, then almost all other parents could enjoy the same way they interacted with their children. However, only one out of 100 thousand is able to put into practice what seems so sim-ple in theory. I had to observe only two cases of true love between all members of the family, when 18-year-old children who truly love their parents are happy to see them at the age of 60, and this joy can only be compared with the joy of seeing happy of their own children and grandchildren. So it should be. And this is not an unattainable ideal. What is possible in one case should be possible in almost all cases - if only the parents had the necessary patience and patience, but in prac-tice this is so rare that the Nigdeans even have a saying that can be de-scriptively translated like this: in a different world, some children enjoy watching the misfortune of their parents, doomed to eternal communi-cation with their parents. And "love by duty" underlies the meaning of the word denoting acute pain in the Nigdean language ... Money for them is the basis of everything. If parents paid more attention to the development of labor skills in their children, then the children would ra-ther become financially independent. And in our time, adult needs of children arise earlier than children learn to earn to satisfy these needs. In this case, children must learn to manage without what they cannot afford, otherwise they will cost their parents too much. This is largely due to imperfect schools in which children learn hypothetical principles of nonsense. Instead of acquiring practical skills. Nowhere schools of hypothetical sciences are very surprising. Not wanting to slide into harsh utilitarianism, I must admit that this knowledge may turn out to be suitable for children of wealthy parents or for children with special abilities for hypothetical sciences, but the problem is that almost all of them are, for reasons of prestige, consider it necessary to send their children to these costly schools, spending their long-term savings on them. It is simply amazing to watch what sacrifices parents are willing to make to give their children a completely useless education! And it is still unknown who suffers more from this: parents who are forced to bear unreasonable expenses, or children who are boggling their heads, orienting them in the wrong direction or leaving them with fog in their heads. It seems to me that the current tendency to reduce the size of families due to the killing of innocent embryos is largely due to the fact that prestigious education for money in Nowhere has turned into some kind of fetish. Children usually do not like anything artificial, they are attracted to the real thing. Give them the opportunity to earn - and they will earn. In the lower classes, the harm inflicted on children by the edu-cation system of the Nigdeans is not so noticeable. Children from poor families at the age of 10 are already starting to do something. If they have the abilities, they will study and make their way up, if not, they, at least, will not be corrupted by a useless school. People, as a rule, find a level suitable for themselves. Nowhere are starting to understand this. There is even talk of taxing those parents whose children, by the age of 20, have not learned any useful craftsmanship. Children will soon be-come financially independent, parents will quickly get rid of the burden of the costs of their care, and this can lead to a general improvement in the relationship between parents and children. Money is a reward, say the Nigda, is a reward for having done something for society that socie-ty really needed. Maybe society is not the best judge in these matters, but there is no other ... People often contrast money and culture, imply-ing that a person who spends time making money does not have time for cultural development. What a fallacy! As if there is another way for spiritual development, except how to achieve financial independence! As if cultural development could help the beggar! “It will only intensify his suffering from the realization that his high cultural level does not help him make ends meet.” Nigdeans have another problem that pro-vokes a loud and furious discussion in society about the same as the is-sue of voting rights for women in France and England at all times. Peo-ple belonging to the party of extreme radicals cannot decide in any way which age is better - mature or young. It is now considered necessary to make young people mature as soon as possible. People aged 35 years and older are suggested to be considered mature. It is also proposed that young bosses have the right to punish incorrigible subordinates. In Europe, this issue is not even discussed, but there doctors usually do not punish people with a whip...
We still lived in the house of Mr. N, a former money-waster. One even-ing we sat in the garden and I tried in every possible way to get a con-fession from his daughter that she would be sorry for a man who truly loves a woman who does not want to marry him. “Sorry?” She asked. “I feel sorry for myself, sorry for you, I feel sorry for everyone.” Having said this, she looked at me intently and left. These simple words opened my eyes: I realized that there was no hope of convincing her to violate the immutable rules and customs of my country. I thought for a long time about the disgrace and misfortune that were associated with viola-tion of marriage customs in Nowhere, but I did not come to any en-couraging conclusion. The fact is that Sam Butler fell in love with the daughter of a corrupt official, recently treated by local healers. But to marry his beloved, openly despising the Nigdean customs, he had to immediately abandon this thought. There was only one thing left: to es-cape with her to Europe, where there would be no obstacles to their marriage (with the exception of lack of money). But all the same, Butler managed to persuade her to talk privately about this, and - if he were not a writer, the thing was done. After plentiful tears and passionate hugs, they parted with great difficulty. After that, we left the N. family, rented an apartment in the city, and Butler plunged into melancholy. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of him with my lover in the Music Bank. The girl, her name was A, didn’t look stressed out, and I was chilled at the thought that she could be seriously ill, and then she would be put on trial. We just hated Nowhere at the thought! Unlike most Nigdeans, Butler did not manage to hide his melancholy, even our friends began to suspect that he was physically not healthy. Then we pretended to be excessively carried away by alcohol, and Butler even turned to the doc-tor in this regard. For a while, everyone calmed down. But here is a new misfortune. We were informed that the urban poor expressed outrage over our pension, and the opposition newspaper even published a poi-sonous article on this subject. The author of this article has agreed to the extent that our blonde hair does not do us a special honor, because, by my own admission, in the country from which we came, it is not so uncommon. I also heard rumors that the King was again interested in the fact that a watch had been found at Butler’s search and even said that treatment would be needed, recalling our story about balloons very inappropriately. I felt that clouds were gathering over our heads and that all my strength should be exerted in order to bring my escape plan to successful implementation. However, here there were people who were sympathetic to us, and among them were just those from whom I did not expect this at all. I mean cashiers at the Music Bank. One of them suggested that we change the setting and go with him to another city, where the main campus of the University of Hypothetical Sciences was located, and my friend assured us that it would be interesting for us to get to know this university. And here we are. The weather is sunny, flowers are everywhere. The last five miles the road went through pic-turesque fields and groves, and when I first saw this city, I really liked it. I felt an upsurge and passionately thanked my comrade for bringing me here. We stayed at a hotel. After dinner, my friend told us about the lo-cal education system. The main difference between their educational system and ours lies in the special attention they pay to hypothetical sciences. They are sure that if students are given knowledge about the real world in which they will have to live and work, then the horizons of students will be very narrow, and their worldview will be superficial. Hypothetical sciences are intended to prepare students for all the most incredible surprises that university graduates are unlikely to meet in their future life. For this purpose, students have been taught the hypo-thetical language for many years, which was once spoken by people who lived during the time of a long-lost civilization. It would seem that reading these works in the original could be taught only to students who show a special interest in a hypothetical language. But the Nigdeans thought otherwise. They believed that an educated person simply must perfectly master a dead hypothetical language and, despite the presence of numerous translations, should spend several years learning how to independently translate the corresponding texts into a modern language. The Nigdeans say that if people in all their actions were guided only by reason, then life would become unbearable. The mind is dangerous. He is capable not only of canceling double-entry bookkeeping, he is capable of sowing doubts even in the materiality of Hope and Justice! The professors of the hypothetical sciences are con-vinced that double-entry bookkeeping cannot be decisively canceled precisely because it is organized on reasonable grounds. Nonsense is the opposite of meaningfulness, and one opposite cannot be eliminated without eliminating the other. Nigdeans do not consider anyone a geni-us, because they are sure that all people are in one degree or another of genius. No one can be absolutely healthy physically, but even in a very sick person some organs remain healthy. The same applies to mental health. And therefore there is no such genius who in some ways would not be a fool, and there is no such fool who in some ways would not be a genius. In this sense, the ideas of the Nigdeans are not so sharply dif-ferent from our ideas: after all, we consider an idiot only one who has his own opinion on all issues ... At a dinner given in my honor, the 80-year-old professor stated that " we don’t have to help students think on their own - it’s important to teach them to think the way we think. This professor served as president of the Society for the Fight against Un-helpful Knowledge. As for the exams that young people must pass be-fore they receive diploma, then I did not notice any competition. Entsii between students Studen you have to write an essay exam by definition, are not shared issues (some of them are known in advance) the purpose of the exam. Not so much to test the student's knowledge of how to make sure that he is able to bring to a conclusion the job. But one stu-dent did not receive a diploma, because too often he was right in the dispute, and the other received an unsatisfactory mark, because he too trusted in what was written in the textbook. I was reckless to mention in a conversation a famous place from Homer, which says that a person should strive for supremacy, to which I received something like this: “It is not surprising that those countries in which such a saying is consid-ered is wise, always ready to cut each other's throats." “Why?” One professor asked, “Why should a man strive to be better than his fellow man? May he be grateful to fate if he is no worse than them?” Butler timidly remarked that he did not see how it would be possible to achieve progress in any science or art without some self-interest and, therefore, some kind of hostility towards competitors. “Of course, this is impossible.” The professor agreed. “That is why we are opposed to progress.” There was nothing to argue. Nigdeans think of progress fol-lowing: “We are not against progress, but progress must be consistent with common sense. And to go ahead of our time is as immoral as to lag behind it. Otherwise, is it not a grave insult to report something that he wouldn’t want to know? Man must remember that intellectual im-moderation is one of the most unworthy forms of all excess. ”Butler seemed to like this thought, and I had already begun to search for a way to get rid of it, but at this time dinner, fortunately, He ended up and everyone went home. It was a mystery to me how many young people grow up virtuous, despite all attempts to make them corrupt. Some young people have really suffered all their lives from the harm that the school inflicted on them, but and many others who not only didn’t get worse, but even got better. Perhaps the reason for this is disrespect for bad teachers inherent in youth. Students were wasted time in the class-room, but in their free time they did physical education, which was, at the very least, least useful for strengthening their physical health. Here it was firmly believed that the desire to delay the spiritual growth of youth is perhaps a more sensible policy than encouraging it. Against the background of an almost complete lack of common sense in their education system, I was especially surprised by his glimpses in the teaching of individual disciplines. For example, the School of Arts had two main subjects: practice and commerce. Students were not allowed to practice in any art until they mastered the commercial aspects of their specialty (well, perhaps, with rare exceptions, when art classes did not negatively affect their study of commercial history). For example, students who studied at the department of painting should have known at what price all outstanding living-writing works had been sold over the past 100 years and how this price changed with repeated or any other subsequent resale. Nigdeans believe that the artist who begins the picture also needs to know what its approximate market value is, as well as to have the necessary painting skills...
As for the city itself, I liked it more and more. I cannot adequately de-scribe the charm of wonderful university buildings, gardens and boule-vards ... It was noticeable that architectural art was least affected by the education system anywhere. We met many professors who provided us with cordial hospitality. Their common feature was that they in no way allowed themselves to “get carried away”, and therefore could not in any way find out what they really think on this or that issue, with the exception of items such as weather, healthy eating and trips out of town. They always evaluated all works of literature equally: "the author says there is some truth in his book, but there is a lot in his book that cannot be accepted." That it was concrete, with which one could or could not agree, I never managed to find out. Not to have a clear opinion on any issue (or in any case not to express it) was obviously considered a sign of good upbringing and education: after all, any opinion could turn out to be erroneous over time. Suppose that conscious beings have reached the present stage of development in 20 million years. Can you even im-agine what kind of results the machines will achieve in the next 20 mil-lion years?! So is it not better to suppress this development in the bud and stop the progress in their further evolution? Who will object that machines possess the rudiments of consciousness? Where does it, co-knowledge, begin? And where does it end? And who can draw a line that clearly delineates the conscious and the unconscious? Is not every-thing on earth intertwined in the closest way? Does the evolution of machines not resemble evolution in the animal world? There is a sun-dew - a plant that feeds on insects: when, for example, a fly sits on its flower, the petals of the flower close and the fly is digested inside the flower, as in the stomach. Interestingly, the petals do not close if some-thing inedible gets on the flower - thus, even a plant that does not have it can recognize what is good for it. You can, of course, say that the plant does not have self-consciousness, and that the plant develops against its will: in the presence of suitable soil, at a certain temperature and humidity, etc., the plant cannot but grow; we can say that it is simi-lar to a clock, which, being wound up, must go as long as the tension in the spring is maintained; or that it is like an uncontrollable sailing ship sailing where its wind carries it. But take, for example, a physically healthy baby - after all, given food, clothing, etc., he also cannot help but grow ... So where is the border between the conscious and the un-conscious? So, either you have to admit that some action, which was still considered purely mechanical, is associated with some elements of consciousness (and in this case, you can also find elements of con-sciousness in highly organized machines); or, by denying the conscious elements in the evolution of vegetables or, for example, crystals, one has to admit that a person owes his origin to something completely un-conscious. If this is so, then there is nothing improbable in the fact that machines can acquire elements of consciousness over time. Currently, the machines do not have reproductive functions. But who said it will always be like this? Who said that the day will not come when the ma-chines will be produced by machines, without any human involvement? At the same time, the machines themselves will decrease in size, which will indirectly indicate progress in their development, just as many once large vertebrate animals decreased in size during the evolution ... So far, we have nothing to fear, but if we take into account how fast If technol-ogy develops, then the significant lag of biological evolution from tech-nical evolution becomes obvious. Should we not, therefore, keep tech-nical development under control and destroy the most complex of exist-ing machines, although today they do not pose an immediate danger to us? Yes, today cars are driven by humans. For example, the sound of one moving machine makes others move away. And what happens when cars move in space without operator assistance? Will such ma-chines not develop their own special language, different from the natu-ral human language, and will they enter into direct communication with each other, bypassing man? It is unlikely that the day will come when the baby will be able to master the differential calculus with the same ease with which he learns the natural language spoken by his mother and nanny. But machines are developing much faster than humans, and it is safe to say that the day will come when an ordinary person will not keep pace with the development of technology. Optimists say that the moral influence of a person will be able to keep machines under control. But can we rely on the moral qualities of the machines themselves? And the sound language? Do cars really need him? After all, it’s just a tem-porary silence that allows people to at least agree on one another ... But here another question arises. What is man, if not a biological machine? Take, for example, our blood cells that travel through blood vessels like people scurry through busy city highways? If you look at the city from a height, you can liken city streets to blood vessels, and the city center to a heart that needs food delivered through these streets. What about the nervous system? Isn’t it like a city sewer network? It may be ob-jected that although machines do not have the power of speech and hearing, they nevertheless do something useful for people; that it is a person who controls their actions, and that they will certainly become obsolete if they do not do what a person expects of them; that in rela-tion to humans, machines play about the same role as livestock; that a steam locomotive is simply a more economical kind of horse; that ma-chines owe their existence to human needs and that they will never de-velop into anything more than man, and teach the lower order entities will forever remain subordinate to man. At first glance, all this sounds correct. But there are quite a few examples where servants are gradually turning into masters, and today we have already come to the conclusion that, in the absence of proper care for the machines, a person can suffer terribly from them. Man has already become so enthralled with ma-chines that if all of a sudden all machines and all knowledge about their device, and everything that was produced with the help of machines are destroyed at once, leaving man only with what was given to him from birth, then humanity will die out after six weeks. It is possible that some unhappy individuals will still survive, but in a couple of years they will turn into animals - the same as monkeys, or even worse ... The human soul itself exists only thanks to machines. A man thinks the way he thinks, he feels the way he feels, only thanks to the objects of ma-chine production, and machines have long become the same condition for his existence as he is for them. All this keeps us from proposing the complete destruction of all machines and mechanisms. But many of them must be destroyed so that a person does not end up under their tyrannical power. Of course, reasoning from a materialistic point of view, we will come to the conclusion that it is precisely those people who flourish who know how to use machines to their advantage. At first glance, that’s how it all happens. For the time being, the machine remains a servant of man. She will not mind, even if a man destroys her. But only on condition that it will be replaced by another machine he created, which will be much better than the previous one. Machines thus reward a person for his efforts to improve them, but only then in order to ultimately become his masters. Neglecting machines, using less sophisticated machines, not wanting to make efforts to improve them or invent new machines, destroying them for no reason to replace them with new machines - all this causes their class, or species rage, and therefore we must destroy them even in the bud . Their power increases as a person gives an increasing preference to his material interests to the detriment of the spiritual. The lower animals evolve in a fierce struggle with each other: the weakest - dies, the strongest - survives and transfers its strength to offspring. Cars do not fight one another. They develop, forcing people to fight with each other. As long as people do everything that cars require of them, everything goes fine. But as soon as a person ceases his efforts to improve machines, he will inevitably lose in the competition with those who are constantly replacing obso-lete machines with more advanced ones, and defeat in this struggle means not only significant material losses, but often death. Even today, machines serve us only on the condition that we service them in accord-ance with their requirements. If we do not do this, then they will break down and may cause a lot of harm to us and to the other machines with which they are connected. Millions of people today are attached to ma-chines, and many of these people devote their entire lives to caring for existing machines, improving them, or inventing new machines. People are becoming increasingly dependent on machines, and many of are its putting all their energy into improving the mechanical world...
Scientists have proved that the heat released by the animal’s body dur-ing the course of life is equal to the heat released by burning all the food consumed by animals during life. Or, in relation to cars that consume fuel, this pattern in the future means complete depletion of fuel re-sources, and although the person as a whole is a higher-order creature in relation to animals, in some areas animals surpass a person in their abilities: fish swim better than man; dogs are capable of spiritual deed — self-sacrifice, to which many people are far from easy; and ants and bees are distinguished by a more reasonable social organization than many human communities ... Some said that the evolution in the world of machines will never achieve results similar to those obtained during the evolution of animal organisms, because machines lack re-productive functions . However, one could argue that there are different reproductive systems, and animal reproduction, for example, is signifi-cantly different from plant reproduction. If we reach that stage in indus-trial development, when the machines will be produced using machines, then can not this be called a reproductive system? The presence of a person in this system can be compared with the presence of insects in the reproductive system of plants. After all, no one will argue that clo-ver does not have a reproductive system, only on the grounds that ferti-lization in it is impossible without the help of a bumblebee. Clover has such a reproductive system, and a bumblebee is only an integral part of it ... "But after all, machines cannot be produced by the same machines as they themselves,” they will reply to us. “A machine producing thim-bles, for example, is completely different from thimble". However, even in living nature, no individual produces its exact copy. In the best case, descendants are produced who may eventually become (or not become) somewhat similar to their parents. Most bees or ants, for example, ful-fill their function of storing food for descendants, without any involve-ment in the production of these descendants. Similarly, in the future machine world, some machines will be capable of re-production, and the rest will perform other functions. Already today there are machines capable of producing other machines, albeit not similar to the "parents" in appearance. We mistakenly imagine a complex machine as a whole, whereas in reality it can be likened to a city or a society in which differ-ent citizens perform different functions. But we often individualize the machine, and even give it a name, only reinforcing such a perception. Meanwhile, even an ordinary steam engine is a rather complex system, which consists of many details, and each of them is necessary for the successful operation of the whole. And even if this relatively simple machine seems complicated to us, can we even imagine what a truly complex and highly organized system the machine world will turn into in twenty thousand or one hundred thousand years?! Already this day, people have achieved what most recently seemed utterly impracticable, and for many it begins to seem that there are simply no limits to devel-opment in this direction. People rarely think that the human body in its present state is the result of gradual development over millions of years, while machines evolve much faster ... This is what causes the most con-cern ... Imagine what we could feel in the distant the geological period, highly organized plants, observing the evolution of early animals. Could they think that the day will come when animals will not only reach the same level of development, but also become more highly or-ganized organisms than plants? .. Similarly, when we observe the de-velopment of the machine world, we consider man to be the crown of evolution and we do not allow the appearance in the future of more ad-vanced machines that will surpass man and create a machine civiliza-tion that is completely different from ours ... "I partially agree,” the crit-ic will say, “but we must take into account that the machine, having physical strength, does not have free will». "Down and Out trouble started!" - We will answer him. With a careful examination of this issue, it is quite possible to consider modern cars a chat room of a new life form unknown to us before. And who in this world really has complete free will, with the exception of the One who is unknown and unknowa-ble? A man is the result of the highest development of all the forces giv-en to him, laid in him before his birth and developed after. His physical development depends on his natural abilities, and his spiritual devel-opment on the society in which he lives. Intertwined and interacting with each other, these factors determine his personality. And in princi-ple, it differs little from a machine that is created for a specific purpose and develops depending on its functions. It is difficult for us to agree with this only because we do not know all the natural and social forces under the influence of which a human personality is formed. We make our generalizations based on what we know, and this is just a small part of the necessary knowledge. But what we cannot explain, we at-tribute to chance, luck and fate, hiding behind these words what we do not know, and denying, in fact, the fact that human development is sub-ject to certain laws, while time as the most impudent flight of a man’s fan-tasia and the most penetrating efforts of his mind depend on the same objective laws as the flight of a dried-up leaf ripped from a tree by a sweeping wind... The future depends on the present. And the present is the result of numerous compromises between the past and the future. A person’s life is full of these compromises, and he lives only with the tacit consent of the past and the future. The only reason we do not see the future with the same distinctness as the past is because we know too little about the past, as well as about the present.